Re: nettime: CYBERSPACE

[John Perry Barlow <barlow@eff.org>]

At 3:42 PM 2/18/96, Morgan Garwood wrote:
>To assume that Mr. Barlow's newfound political domain is somehow
>predicated on a slaveholding mentality, constitutes the New Plantation, and
>will spell the exploitation of the "masses" by a HiTek few does not comport
>with thhe facts. Politics are becoming more opened to free discussion, closed
>professions are more easily scrutinized, and I think we are enjoying a shift
>from the theatre of politics to a newfound politics of substance, precisely
>thanks to the internet.

Thank you ever so much for this Morgan.

I've begun to think that, unless one couches one's rhetoric in warmed over
Marxism-Leninism, that it has no place before this list. As though no
enslavement arose from their ideas...

>  HOWEVER, as we have discussed before, there are dark countertrends which can
>all too easily be swept under the rug in our rush to modernize... such as the
>explosive growth of public "gaming", the godawful badness of our public school
>system, and technologically miraculous ShitKultur for the Dumbos.

Who said anything about sweeping them under the rug? Why is enthusiasm so
easily conflated with denial. I've served on a school board. How many here
can make that claim?

>  HOWEVER #2, if anything on the horizon has the leverage to rectify this state
>of affairs, and return the control of political, social, cultural discourse to
>the people who partake of it, is the very system you are disseminating your
>opinions on at this very minute, without which we would never have heard of
>each other, much less known of each other's opinions.

Another wonderfully clear point. Again, thank you.

Yrs,

John Perry


****************************************************************
John Perry Barlow, Cognitive Dissident
Co-Founder, Electronic Frontier Foundation

Home(stead) Page: http://www.eff.org/~barlow

Message Service: 800/634-3542

Barlow in Meatspace Today: Mill Valley, California

Coming soon to: San Jose 2/21, San Francisco 2/21-22, Los Angeles 2/23,
Pinedale, Wyoming 2/24-25, Big Sky, Montana 2/25, Pinedale 2/26-27, Laguna
Niguel, California 2/29, Denver 2/29, Pinedale 3/1-7, San Rafael. CA

In Memoriam, Dr. Cynthia Horner and Jerry Garcia

*****************************************************************

Madness is rare in individuals--but in groups, parties, nations, and ages it
is the rule.

                              --Nietzche, Beyond Good and Evil


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